FADA

Saturday, March 21, 2015

One Channel Projection. Courtesy of the artist and the Goodman Gallery

FADA Gallery is transformed into a black cube (lower ground floor) to host the much anticipated VIAD curated exhibition titled, Past Imperfect // Future Present. The exhibition features the work of visual practitioners engaging with complexities
of, and rethinking new possibilities for, contemporary archival practices using
lens-based and newmedia technologies. In reflecting on the fragments, traces
and omissions within archives of the past and present, these practitioners are
reimagining and reconstructing new narratives from within their contemporary
contexts. (All photographs the blogger)

Past Imperfect // Future Present
explores multiple approaches through which the archive may be ‘addressed’. In
their work, practitioners engage with archival content (drawing on,
intervening, reinterpreting, reframing, re-activating and re-appropriating);
refer to, and ‘speak with’, the archive, thereby setting up a conversation that
takes place in-between the spaces of interchange.

Works on the exhibition reflect and expand on issues raised in Archival
Addresses: Photographies, Practices, Positionalities, a platform that forms
part of VIADUCT 2015 - an annual programme convened by the Visual Identities in
Art and Design Research Centre, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture,
University of Johannesburg.

Michelle
Monareng. Removal to Radium, 2013.

Mixed Media 3 Channel Video Installation,

Continuouscycle ~1:15 mins. Edition of 3 + 2 Aps

Past Imperfect // Future Present explores multiple approaches through which the archive may be
‘addressed’. In their work, practitioners engage with archival content (drawing
on, intervening, reinterpreting, reframing, re-activating and
re-appropriating); refer to, and ‘speak with’, the archive, thereby setting up
a conversation that takes place in-between the spaces of interchange.

Some practitioners address archival sources in
ways that prompt viewers to re-think how artworks are received. Readings of
images are framed by both the practitioners' and viewers' contexts. Those
working in the digital realm - at times playfully and mischievously - push the
archive into new territories, exploring the ongoing expansion and
diversification of archival forms. By unraveling archival modalities and unsettling
its norms these practitioners raise questions around consumption,
accessibility, ownership, ethics, power and control. Practitioners using social
media and digital spaces blur the lines between the intimate and the public
through ongoing performances of (self) identities within, and in response to,
constantly transforming and emergent digital terrains.

In selecting particular works that highlight a
diversity of practices, a (thin) slither of archival addresses is brought into
view.

Ayana V. Jackson- a US-born photographer and filmmaker -
explores varying constructions of African and African-American identities
in primarily early 20th century photographic archives, through the use and
imaging of her own body.

Michelle Monareng. Removal to Radium, 2013.

Mixed Media 3 Channel Video Installation,

Continuous cycle ~1:15 mins. Edition of 3 + 2 Aps

Michelle Monareng is currently completing an MAFA at the University of
the Witwatersrand. Her work explores the undoing of archival interpretations
and reallocation and transformation of factual information into the realm of
artistic imagination.

Santu Mofokengis a Johannesburg-based photographer. He focuses on
explorations of photography invested with political significance, prompting a
wider enquiry into issues of ownership, power and memory. With subjects as
visually diverse as religious rituals, images of black identities or desolate
landscapes, Mofokeng subverts the comfort zones of racial and cultural memory,
questions the politics of representation and the objectifying gaze of the
photographer.

Zanele Muholi works and lives in Johannesburg. In her work Muholi
explores often forgotten and omitted black queer and trans visual histories as
a form of resistance against hate crimes on the continent and beyond.

Alexander Opper is an architect, designer, artist, writer and Senior
Lecturer in the Dept. of Architecture, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture,
University of Johannesburg. In his design practice he explores relationships
across traditionally separate disciplines such as art, architecture, furniture
design and language. His current artistic practice focuses on the overlaps and
connections between the theory and production of architecturally/spatially
inspired installation environments. This growing body of work thematically
gravitates around a mode of critical spatial practice, held together under the
working title, Undoing Architecture.

Uriel Orlowlives and works in London. He produces multi-media
installations that explore blind spots of history and forms of haunting and
bring different image-regimes and narrative modes into
correspondence. Orlow studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins College of
Art & Design and The Slade School of Art, London and philosophy at the
University of Geneva, graduating with a PhD in Fine Art in 2002. He is
currently a Senior Research Fellow at University of Westminster and Visiting
Artist at Geneva University of Art & Design (HEAD), Geneva, Switzerland.

Karin
Preller. Year-end party,
Johannesburg, 1960s (left)

Chinese Restaurant, 1970. painted in 2014, both Oil on canvas

Karin Preller is a Johannesburg based artist who holds an MA(FA)
from the University of the Witwatersrand. In her work, she investigates visual
ambiguities and ambivalences present within photographs and their translation
into paint.

Jo Ractliffe is currently Cape Town-based. She draws on a range of
photographic and art practices including snapshot, documentary, forensic and
studio photography, as well as installation, video and projections. In her work
Ractliffe engages with ephemerality, desire, loss, longing, spaces of absence,
silences, the known and the unknown, attempting to depict that which lies
outside of the frame.

Bogosi Sekhukhuniwas born in Johannesburg one year after Nelson
Mandela was released from prison, and one day after his release date. He
studied Visual Arts at the University of Johannesburg and works with the
digital artists’ group, CUSS. Sekhukhuni critiques personal and political
identities within post-1994 South Africa.

Tabita Rezaire is a Danish-Guyanese artist-filmmaker and video/new
media curator based in Johannesburg. She focuses on political aesthetics of
resistance in screen-based practices, engaging in cinematic urban intervention
and digital activism through videos, curated screenings and camera workshops in
marginalised urban environments. Exploring the performativity of encounters,
online and offline, she addresses issues of sex, race and gender confronting
media stigmatisation and occidental hegemonies.

Minnette Vári is a Johannesburg-based artist and part-time Lecturer
in the Dept. of Visual Art, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, University
of Johannesburg. She works across a range of diverse mediums including ink
drawing to video installations, often incorporating performance elements into
reworked historical documentary and archival footage. In her work, she
conflates self and history, examining how identity arises out of South Africa’s
traumatic past (see http://www.goodman-gallery.com).

Minnette Vári. The Revenant, 2012.

One Channel Projection. Courtesy of the artist and the Goodman Gallery

Sunday, March 1, 2015

This year’s winner of the Thuthuka Awards,
Themba Mantshiyo is one of six very talented, dedicated, skilled and creative
students registered at the Jewellery Department of the University of
Johannesburg.

Arguably the most promising group of students I have ever had the
privilege of teaching, I taught them in their first and second year. Two students, Milda
and Themba, received their basic skills training at FET colleges before
enrolling for the university programme in design and manufacture.

Amongst them is
a talented and creative individual, Zadie Becker (Second Prize – achievement
award), who matriculated with 9 distinctions. Working as a closely-knit group
they compliment each other on all levels, the perfect incubator situation to
foster the next generation of young jewellery designer makers. Their well-deserved
awards are therefore a timeous accolade on their journey of creative
development. The exhibition showcases a diverse range of design concepts and
ideas for shoe accessories and is open daily, Monday to Friday from 09:00 to
16:00. The exhibition runs until 12 March.

Last year, the thuthuka jewellery development
project took another step forward by introducing young mentors. We’ve matched
postgraduates with community jewellery students to provide hem with hands-on
teaching and mentorship from their peers. These ‘twinnings’ have been intensely
focused, inspiring and fun for everyone involved. The feedback has been
overwhelmingly positive and we are encouraged to continue the teamwork in the
future.